


I cover my eyes (still all I see is you)

by redmorningstar



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Character Death Fix, Epilogue, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, POV Alternating, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Present Tense, Reunions, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers, Waiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-20 08:34:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22014574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redmorningstar/pseuds/redmorningstar
Summary: The Force bond did not close when Ben died. No, the bond was torn away, and though Rey tried to hold him with everything she had, it made no difference. There’s a wound in her world where he once stood and she knows that nothing will ever fill it. It aches at night, pulls sharp sometimes when she is reminded of him, grows worse when it rains. She won’t bleed to death or stop breathing from it. She might yet live, with half a soul. Might.-No one's ever really gone. Ben and Rey and the long journey back to each other. Post-TROS fix-it.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 6
Kudos: 78





	I cover my eyes (still all I see is you)

**Author's Note:**

> I had to write this, to write myself out of the pain I had after TROS. Stories can hurt us, but they can heal, too. That's the power of fandom. I hope this story can provide a comfort for some.
> 
> Here's my take on fixing it, inspired in part by the drama Goblin: The Lonely and Great God. Title from The Animals Were Gone by Damien Rice.
> 
> As ever, kudos and comments are ♥.

There's so much space on Tatooine; the horizon goes on for miles and miles. It's a lot for one person and a droid. Even the bed is big, much bigger than Rey’s old cot, and yet she still sleeps tucked against the wall, leaving the rest of the bed vacant. She can’t overcome her reluctance to fill that space.

She finds herself wasting food these days, always cooking more portions than one person can eat. For someone who was always so careful with rations, these days she is the opposite, throwing away half the food she prepares out of absentmindedness. In truth her heart can’t accept what her mind knows, that Ben is gone and he’s never coming back.

At night, desperate to sleep, Rey sees a field of green, a planet she’s never been to before. She and Ben stand together, limned in light, radiant with happiness. She can’t remember if she once saw it in a vision or if it is simply a dream born of longing. It makes no difference now, she supposes.

-

Ben wakes up in a place that is not a place. The world is blinding white and the landscape stretches on as far as his eyes can see. A bitter, cold wind blows through him. Strange, that he can still _feel_ like that.

He remembers his last moments. Cradling her in his arms. Giving what little life he had left to her so that she might wake up and look at him again. The touch of her hand. His name on her lips. A kiss, their first and last, before he had to go.

The ground is solid beneath his feet so he stands and begins to walk. There is no landmark to set his sights on, no destination in mind. Maybe he will encounter something, maybe not. Even so, he'd rather move than remain still.

Ben knows, logically and rationally, that he must be dead. Strangely, he thought death might be different. For one thing, he thought his parents might be here, or _anyone_ for that matter. What a disappointment to find nothing but loneliness awaiting him here, too. Still, it was worth it, to know that she would live to see the new dawn; his own life was a small price to pay by comparison. Her smile... He will cherish that memory, let it warm him in place of the sun in this desolate place.

-

Rey keeps busy. First, it’s the house, cleaning, fixing, and upgrading it to bring the place into the current era. Then it’s the compound, deciding what to grow in the garden, where to put sensors to scare away the night animals... Her list of “things to do” goes on.

She discovers that idleness is a dangerous thing. An idle mind means imagining what could have been, the daydreams as sharp as glass, cutting her each time she lingers on them. All she knows is that she can’t stop moving. If she stops, she doesn’t know if she will ever start again.

-

With such a featureless landscape surrounding him, it is up to Ben's own imagination to keep him entertained. Sometimes his mind will conjure up the scent of freshly baked bread, or a hearty savoury stew, or the saccharine sweetness of fruit… it’s enough to make his mouth water, despite not seeming to require food in his current form.

 _Is this the Netherworld?_ Ben wonders but quickly dismisses the thought. After all, he still holds his shape and his mind, and though he is not quite tangible, he is not simply Force energy, either. He hardly knows what this place is and what it all means, but he thinks on it anyway, because what else is there to do?

And there is the wound in his chest in place of where his bond with her would normally be. The pain of it waxes and wanes so he picks it apart, trying to analyse it. If he tries to reach for her, the pain tears at him, bordering on unbearable. When he thinks about her, it aches, dull and persistent. He pushes at it constantly, disrupting any chance of healing or comfort. Better to feel the pain than to be empty, he thinks.

-

The Force bond did not close when Ben died. No, the bond was torn away, and though Rey tried to hold him with everything she had, it made no difference. There’s a wound in her world where he once stood and she knows that nothing will ever fill it. It aches at night, pulls sharp sometimes when she is reminded of him, grows worse when it rains. She won’t bleed to death or stop breathing from it. She might yet live, with half a soul. Might.

She starts marking the days again as a reminder that time is moving forward, even though she has felt frozen since the moment Ben died. It still feels like she is waiting for _something_ , she doesn’t quite know what. For her life to begin, perhaps.

BB-8 is good for her. He follows her most places, reminds her to eat when she forgets, and to move when she spends too long staring into the horizon, searching. He keeps her connected. She thinks that’s why he chose to come with her, instead of following Poe, who loves him just as much. She’s grateful, she truly is. After all, without BB-8 she might have disappeared completely.

Finn visits, when he can, and sometimes Poe will tag along. They are important people now charged with reorganising the galaxy so it isn't very often, which makes Rey feel shamefully relieved, actually. She knows Finn worries so she does her best to keep up appearances. She tells him about her little house projects and her explorations of Tatooine, laying down proof of how well she is doing, living by herself after the war. She doesn’t talk about what happened, or how she feels, or the half-conversations she will start sometimes, even though there’s no one to hear them. Poe suspects, but she made BB-8 promise not to tell even him.

This time it’s just Finn, stopping over for a few hours on the way to a different outer rim planet for business. Rey makes tea and sets biscuits on the table and tells herself that she can do this, put on the mask and play at being a normal human for a few hours.

“Are you okay living alone out here?” Finn asks for the nth time, concern clear in his dark eyes.

“I like being alone,” she replies. It’s a lie, but more simple than the truth. She wanted to be with someone, once. Finn moves to sit at the table and the words are out of Rey’s mouth before she can stop them, “Don’t, that’s Ben’s-” She shuts her mouth so hard her teeth ache, but it’s too late. The look Finn sends her way is so full of pity that she can barely stand it.

“Rey, you still haven’t told me what happened on Exegol. With Ben,” he says. He doesn’t call him Kylo Ren; he’s being gentle, for her sake.

“I _can’t_ ,” she says, through gritted teeth. What words can she say? How could she ever hope to explain it all? Takodana was where it began and Exegol was where it ended; the story cannot be told in reverse. Even now, just the thought of it makes her want to rage and cry and scream and hide all at once. She forces the emotions down, buries it underneath layers of sand because what choice does she have? Finn could never understand, though he would try. That was the problem. The only one who could ever truly understand was _gone_.

Finn watches her with worried eyes, but does not pry further; he thinks that she will tell him when she’s ready. Rey already knows that she won’t. The story is hers and his, no one else’s.

-

“Rey. Rey. Rey.” He says her name to himself, like a mantra. Even as his lips crack and bleed, even as he feels hollowed out by this empty world, the thought of her can still bring him strength.

Nothing ever changes, until one day it does.

 _“I know, I have to tuck my elbows in.”_ Her tone is exasperated but fond. The sound of her voice is like a drink of water to a parched man. He waits with bated breath for a moment, for an eternity, but she does not speak again. It’s not a memory, for she has never spoken those words to him before. Perhaps a fantasy conjuring up by his starving mind. The pain in his chest pangs and throbs. He keeps walking and walking and hopes he will hear her speak again.

-

Ben doesn't appear to her as a ghost. Rey sees Luke and Leia sometimes, but never him. They don’t talk about it and she never asks. She doesn't want it confirmed, one way or another, that Ben is truly dead and that she will never see him again. It doesn’t matter; Ben haunts her in other ways instead. The feel of his mouth when she kissed him. She can remember it in perfect clarity, will know it for the rest of her days, until she is nothing more than dust and bones. In that moment, they had been as one being, suspended in perfect happiness, both hers and his. After everything they had been through, after all the loneliness and pain and hardship, they had found each other at last and she had thought to herself, naively, _neither of us will ever be alone again_. When she thinks of that moment she can’t separate the happiness from the pain; the loss had cut her all the deeper for it.

Better not to think about it all, to spare herself the hurt where possible. Better to shut them both away, locked in her heart, forever. Or at least, she wishes she could.

Maybe she has really lost it, but she thought she heard his voice the other day. She thought she heard him call her name. It had unbalanced her, badly, shattering the thin veneer of stability she had built around her. BB-8 had rushed into the room and made soothing noises at her until she stopped shaking.

Sometimes it feels like he is just around the next sand dune, that if she waits long and hard enough, he’ll come back. She knows, abstractly, that it is just her mind and grief playing tricks on her and yet it doesn’t feel as simple as denial, it feels more solid than that, a sense beyond touch, hearing, and sight. Rey doesn’t know how else to explain it. Ben was half of her soul. How can she still be here if he is gone?

-

One day, he realises that the tug in his chest has a direction. Without a plan or hope, he begins to follow it. The air grows warmer. It's not his imagination. He's not going mad. Something _is_ changing here.

He isn’t infatigable. The heaviness in his legs grows as he keeps moving, sometimes causes him to stumble and fall. But the stronger the feeling gets, the more he fights it. It is more compulsion than choice now. He _must_ keep going. He doesn’t know why, but he must.

-

There are three hundred and sixty-five marks on the wall. A whole year has passed and the world still feels the same, or perhaps it is she who hasn’t changed. Slowly, but surely, the wound begins to close. Rey isn’t sure whether to be glad or distraught because without it she will truly have nothing of him.

One day she wakes up and can’t feel it. No pain, no ache, no longing. But it doesn’t feel empty. No, this is something _else_. She can’t contain the feeling flaring in her chest, too bright, almost painful: _hope_.

Rey leaves her house, frantic, her eyes scanning the horizon. There, limned in light, she sees a familiar figure; she would recognise the line of his shoulders anywhere. She runs to him, stumbling in her haste, his name on her lips until Ben finally stands before her, solid and whole, though she can hardly make out his face from her tears. She is almost afraid to touch him; if the man in front of her is nothing more than a dream, then it will truly be the end for her.

“Rey,” he says, and it undoes her, she can’t hold together anymore, she _can’t_. She crumples, but his arms are around her, strong and steady, just as she remembers. _Not a dream_. It makes her cry all the harder. “Rey,” he says again, like a mantra, like he can’t quite believe it himself.

“I was waiting, Ben,” she tells him through her tears, desperate and barely coherent, “I waited a long, long time.” The place set at the table. The space in her bed. The half-conversations. She had spent the last year, calling hopelessly with all her being and all her might into the silent universe for him: _Be with me_. The Force had connected them across time and space before, beyond comprehension. Why not now? Beyond death. She had wished for one last miracle... and the Force had answered.

“I know,” he murmurs in her ear, “I heard you calling. Somehow I knew that you were waiting for me.” Ben pulls back to look at her face, to brush the tears from her cheeks. He smiles, the curve of it more brilliant than her memory. “Sweetheart,” he says, the endearment new and familiar at the same time. He kisses her then and it’s not a last kiss or a goodbye, it feels like a beginning, the first of _many_.

When they finally part, Rey smiles and says the words she has longed to say for a lifetime: “Welcome home, Ben.”


End file.
